From a Buick 8: A Novel

If this really is King's last real novel (the forthcoming Dark Tower books don't quite count), then he's going out with style and grace. "From A Buick 8" is a wonderfully gripping read, full of the creepy crawlies, but mostly it's a moving, melancholy meditation on time and loss, more "Green Mile" than "Christine". His command of character and flow are wondrous at times. You believe in these people; you can see them, you know them. I've always thought that was his great gift and the real secret to his popularity--his people live in the same world we do. In them, we recognize ourselves (and our landscapes), and somehow that provides solace, as if we're finally being seen and understood. (It's similar to what Springsteen does.) The scary stuff was always secondary. Anyway, this one's awfully fine. It kept me up nights--and there's really nothing better in the world than a book that keeps you up nights. (It's like having a secret power source, and is almost as rare.) There are more subtle writers in the world, but there's not another who's given me more pure pleasure. I always feel wide awake when I'm reading Stephen King, as if I'm reading with my whole self. Being one of his Constant Readers has been one of the best relationships of my life. We sort of grew up together. I think he really means it about not publishing anything else, and that's a loss destined to be as resonant for me as the ones he details so beautifully in this last, best book.

I spoke to a few people and read many reviews about this book. And they said it wasn't Kings best or really that good. I disagree, I just finished reading it. It's not an action/terrifying type story. It's a haunting camp fire story. You get to know ALL the characters and care what happens. Even the minor characters seem like their main characters. Is it a bit slow? Yes, but that's because when you learn things about people, it doesn't happen rapidly. More importantly, King brings in his trademark with Monsters. It's a story about one police department and the people involved, and they deal with loss and overcoming tragedy. It's also about a son learning about a father he never had the chance to get to know. It's about the people in our life's that are not blood related, yet they are family. A haunting tale! This is a fantastic horror story.

You have to hand it to King...over his prolific, heralded/bashed career, he has managed to write books that even at their most ineffectual, still demonstrate his mastery of characterization, and the terror we find in ordinary settings and places. In "From a Buick 8," it's not so much the "horror aspect" that makes this such an engaging read. It's the characters---the troopers who have kept a horrific secret for almost three decades, and whose lives are played out in reminiscences from many of the troopers. All for the sake of young Ned Wilcox, whose father was killed in a terrible accident just a year before our story begins. Seems his father was the most mesmerized by this strange car that comes out of nowhere and over the course of these thirty years, does some strange things. It's not as compelling a plot as I would have liked, but the characters are all gripping, believable and speak the vernacular that has both won praise and condemnation from those nasty critics. At any rate, if you enjoy Mr. King's novels as much as I have over the years, this one won't disappoint. At times, it's leisurely, but never dull. The character of Shirley Pasternak is one of the best female characters has created since Dolores Claiborne. She is rich in compassion, humor, and is the kind of woman any man would delight in going home to. Although King does go a bit overboard with Brian Lippy (no one really behaves like this, do they?), it does help in the full realization of the wonderful character, Eddie, whose fate is inevitable, but sad nonetheless. Don't get me wrong..King hasn't lost his touch for creating some really creepy, horrifying scenes. Just focus on his wonderful style; even his personal experience of being hit by an automobile is woven into the story, and it's as frightening as the Buick 8. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. HE IS THE KING.

As a long time reader of Stephen King's fiction (I started in 1977), this is the one author who I treasure more than life itself. I personally think of him as the "Charles Dickens" of American Literature for the 20th Century and would gladly argue the case with any critic. With Mr. King's newest novel, FROM A BUICK 8, he once again proves that no one can do it better. This is the story of Troop D of the Pennsylvania State Police and the 1954 Buick that they've kept hidden for twenty-two years in Shed B behind their barracks in the rural community of Statler Township. It begins in 2001, the year after Trooper Curtis Wilcox is killed in a terrible traffic accident. His eighteen-year-old son, Ned, begins to hang around the barracks in an effort to keep the memory of his father alive. In time, he discovers the Buick in Shed B and questions Sandy Dearborn, the commander of Troop D, about it. Sandy decides to tell Ned the background history of the car and the part his late father played in it-from the discovery of the abandoned Buick at a gas station by Troopers Curtis Wilcox and Ennis Rafferty in 1979, to the disappearance of Rafferty a few hours later, to the stark realization of just how dangerous this oddity of a vehicle was, and to the hideous other-world creatures that occasionally popped out of its trunk. Twenty-three years later, however, the car is still hungry and decides to go after the son of the man it could never catch unaware. FROM A BUICK 8 takes us into the small family of Troop D and the secrets they kept hidden for over two decades. It's about a car that may be a portal to another dimension...a car that's always waiting patiently for someone to get too close to it at the wrong time. But more than anything, this is a story about friendship, the curiosity that people have for the unknown, and the journey an eighteen-year-old boy has to take in order to become a man. Only Stephen King could write a book in which the characters don't just come alive for the reader, they become your friends in every sense of the word and you care about what happens to them. That's the power of Mr. King's storytelling. You're not reading a novel; you're living it! This book grabbed me in the first few pages and didn't let go till the end, when I felt a deep sadness in my heart for a past that can never be relived. The other night, after I'd finished reading FROM A BUICK 8, I saw a GM commercial on television about the legendary car designer, Harley Earl, and guess what he was standing beside-a 1954 Buick Roadmaster! The whole thing gave me goose bumps. Thank you, Mr. King, for doing it again.